Cardinals prospects on BaseballHQs Mega-Lists

Brian Walton

02/15/2012

Some of baseball's preeminent minor league experts from BaseballHQ share their rankings of St. Louis Cardinals prospects on several tools-related "best of" lists, along with five players in their overall top 100. Plus bonus 2012 draft recap.

BaseballHQ's annual "Minor League Baseball Analyst" arrived in my mailbox recently. The first prospect guide to fully integrate sabermetrics and scouting includes detailed reports on over 1000 minor leaguers.

In Part one, we reviewed their top 15 St. Louis Cardinals prospects with the details as to why they're ranked where they are. In Part two, Cardinals' organizational rankings in areas such as pitching, hitting, depth and top talent were compared to their National League Central Division competitors. Then we followed with a look at individual player movement and projections changes from 2011 to 2012.

Here in the final installment of this annual series, we will compare several of the top Cardinals prospects to the best in the game overall, by position in terms of long-range potential in the Major Leagues as well as in top skills. Closing this article will be a review of the Cardinals 2011 draft.

Top Power - Top 25 prospects that have the potential to hit for power in the Major Leagues, combining raw power, plate discipline, and the ability to make their power game-usable. Matt Adams, 1B, STL

Top Batting Average - Top 25 prospects that have the potential to hit for high batting average in the major leagues, combining contact ability, plate discipline, hitting mechanics and strength. Kolten Wong, 2B, STL
Oscar Taveras, OF, STL
Matt Adams, 1B, STL

Top Speed - Top 25 prospects that have the potential to steal bases in the Major Leagues, combining raw speed and base-running instincts.
No Cardinals listed

Bonus coverage - St. Louis CARDINALS 2012 DRAFT RECAP
The Cardinals under the direction of recently departed Scouting Director Jeff Luhnow continued to draft a mix of polished college players and projectable high schoolers. 1st round pick Kolten Wong (22nd overall) looks to be a professional hitter and had one of the best pro debuts of any pick in the draft, hitting .335/.401/.510 with 15 doubles, 5 home runs, 9 SB, and 21 BB/24 K in the MWL. 2nd round pick Charlie Tilson and 3rd rounder C.J. McElroy are true CF with plus speed. The Cardinals didn't break the bank on this draft, spending just $4.6 million, but Wong looks like a sure thing and if Tilson or McElroy click they will get good bang for their buck.

Sleeper: Danny Miranda (RHP) was an 8th round pick out of the University of Miami where he served as their closer. At 5'11", he isn't going to blow hitters away and his fastball rarely breaks 90 mph, but he has good stuff and gets hitters out. Miranda had a solid debut, 2.64 ERA, 7 BB/27 K, and 15 saves in 30.2 IP.

Grade: B

In closing, thank you to BaseballHQ for giving us this special look into their data. Please respect them and copyright laws by not duplicating this material.